Happy Birthday, Chrissy
by AllTheseFeels
Summary: A gift for a friend. For all she's done for everyone :


_**Happy Birthday, Chrissy~**_

The Reapers were gone; Earth was saved. However, it wasn't saved the way it should have been and Shepard hadn't acted with the integrity that she'd been trained to act with. All of this wasn't supposed to happen. She'd spent most of her time fighting this war flitting around systems to try and recruit miniscule fleets to the overall mass of the counterattack against the Reapers. Not that this had made any difference; the Reapers had still decimated nearly half of the overall forces before she'd even gotten the arms of the Citadel open. This wasn't how it was supposed to have happened. She hadn't spent this long fighting and losing people she cared about for a half-hearted victory. She couldn't believe that this was how it had to end. A final confrontation with an AI and shoehorned into three choices that all had vastly negative connotations were the best she was given after everything she'd tried to achieve. Destroying the Reapers had been the least awful option, so she took it, and now she lay defeated in the rubble wishing for a better end to this war other than having to commit genocide or play god. This was stupid, this was unfair, this was—

"And, HEAVE!"

"Heave! C'mon, put your backs into it!"

She vaguely heard the sound of straining and many scrabbling hands as the weight of rubble slowly dissipated from her body. She felt lighter than air, filled with renewed hope as she took a few gasping breaths through her slightly rattling chest. Bleary eyes focused to see dozens, no, HUNDREDS of people standing before her with rubble in their hands and grime smearing their faces. All were breathless but all offered their hands to her to help her stand. Shepard took one blindly, gratefully, and was easily hoisted to her feet. Her injuries were non-existent and she could swear her armour wasn't even damaged anymore. It was she was getting a chance to do everything all over again. She looked to her allies and a sea of determined faces looked back at her; some in tears, others beaming, some still shaking with rage. Yet she managed to recognise them all with ease. The soldiers who had been helping fight alongside her all this time were still here at the end –or whatever this was – and the looks she was getting only solidified her belief that they were willing to keep fighting. Although this…Situation was disconcerting despite everyone being here and there were questions to be answered.

"What's going on?" She breathed to those standing at the front line. "Are we dead?"

Most of the laughed then, not at her but with her, and one saluted as they approached.

"No, ma'am. We're merely wiping the slate clean. Take a look around,"

Sure enough, when Shepard turned her head, there was nothing to see. They were standing on nothing, staring into an expanse of nothing, breathing nothing. All the eye could see for eternity was white – like a fresh artists canvas.

"What does this mean?"

"It means that we can do this our way, Commander. From start to finish, we can end the war on our terms – conventionally or not,"

The soldier stepped forward with a long black case in a gloved hand, their eyes bright with tears and honesty. Shepard took it with hesitance and felt her brow furrow in confusion when the case clicked open to reveal the tiny paintbrush sitting inside the velvet-lined case.

"Is this some kind of joke, soldier?" She sighed impatiently, twirling the stick between her fingers.

"No, ma'am. Like I said; start to finish on our own terms. We're the artists now, we're the writers. We'll make things right without having to kick and scream about it. The Reapers won't know what hit them,"

Shepard was perplexed but not disbelieving as she ran the bristles along her index finger. If this was true she could stop people she loved throwing their life away from her. She could have stopped things from going disastrously wrong.

Wait, she could.

The army before her stirred and whispers became murmurs, murmurs became words, words became shouts until finally the shouts turned to a unified chant.

"Hold the line. Hold the line. Hold the line,"

Shepard felt the faintest of smiles flicker across her lips and clenched her fist around the dainty brush. It was going to be better her way; their way.

"We'll show them how it's done," She proclaimed.

And with one wave of the brush across the empty canvas, Shepard changed the course of history. Things ended on her terms, the fleets were more prepared, things were added and subtracted to the very fabric of the galaxy and that gave her an outcome she had slaved to attain.

Shepard finally got to retire on Earth, have her children, and tell them about the time she headbutted a Krogan.

She'd earned this; she deserved it.


End file.
